Eager to make up the time we had spent in Llachon, we decided to cycle extra far today. But before we could cycle, we were going to have to take the boat from the peninsula to the mainland. After our usual morning routine, we said our goodbyes to our French friends and headed off down the very steep slope to the pier, where a small wooden boat was waiting for us. Luckily, the weather was wonderful: the sun was shining and the water was relatively calm. After loading our bikes, bags and ourselves onto the small boat, we waved to our friends one last time and headed off.

I used the hour it took to get to the other side for a nice nap in the sunshine because there wasn’t going to be much relaxation once we arrived back on the mainland. And that’s exactly how it came: we arrived in a small village, got everything ready and set off. It was strenuous from the start with a short but very steep incline followed by several ups, downs and longer steep climbs. It was very hard to properly breathe at this altitude upon exertion despite the fact that we were now used to the elevation. Nonetheless, we all cycled really well and before we knew it, we had already cycled 25 km through tough terrain — tough to cycle, but incredibly beautiful to see in many places.

We arrived in Acora a bit later where we were hungry for a warm lunch and had soup and tallarín, which was tasty but even more void of vegetables than usual. We continued cycling until Ilave thereafter, where we had a refreshing and tasty fruit–vegetable smoothie (which felt so good after pretty much only eating simple carbs for lunch) and bought some fruit and vegetables before cycling even further.

We ended up cycling all the way to Wilka Uta and Aramu Muru, a very beautiful and impressive natural rock formation where we found a beautiful spot to camp. Unfortunately, a man came and told us we would have to pay 5 soles per person to stay there. While that’s only €1.25 p.p., we felt like it was expensive given that there was absolutely nothing there except for grass. No toilets, no showers, nothing. So we cycled around the rock formation a bit further in an attempt to find a piece of land that was not private and level enough to sleep on for one night.

Eventually, when the sun had set but there was still some light left, we found a decent spot and quickly set up our tent, got the beds ready and brought the bags in. And not a minute too soon — because by the time we handed Jacques the last two bags, raindrops started coming down slowly and rapidly turned into a steady downpour, which in turn turned into quite the thunderstorm.

Not wanting to cook, we ate some bread with avocado and tomatoes in the tent’s awning, washed ourselves with some moist pieces of fabric and soap, brushed our teeth and didn’t go out until we really had to. Despite the uneven and bumpy terrain that we slept on, all of us fell asleep rather quickly, tired from the day’s long distance and elevation gain.

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